MANNING NO GUARANTEE OF STROLL TO TITLE

Suppose he can. It’s doubtful he’ll be as good. And as far as Super Bowls are concerned, he won one with Indianapolis, and there’s no denying he had far better teams and weapons with the Colts than he’s going to have with the Broncos. Has any great quarterback lost more big games with good teams in his life than Peyton Manning? Can’t think of one.

And I keep hearing about this tremendous, dominating defense the Broncos have. I’m not going to tell you it’s bad, but including one playoff game, the Broncos gave up 40 or more points five times last year. Great defenses don’t do that; don’t do that if a high school kid is quarterbacking their team.

I refuse to anoint the Broncos in March, but for that matter I’m not ready to daub oil on any AFC West team. Smith has been very active and appears to have done some nice things in free agency, but the Chargers haven’t played anyone yet, either. And I still haven’t seen Smith acquire the dominant pass rusher or strong safety he so terribly needs — and drafts, as we’ve seen lately, offer no guarantees.

“If we can build a great offense, score some points and go on long drives, we can keep Manning on the sidelines with his helmet on,” Smith says. “But we’ve got to see him play first.

“You can’t lose six games in a row like we did last year. Maybe we would have had better backups if I had done a better job. We’ve wasted two years. We have to get off the field. Our defense has been bringing us down. The defense has to rise up for us to have a shot in the division, and I don’t care who’s the quarterback in Denver. We have failed miserably.”

Not the Broncos. They’ve already cleared cabinet space for the Lombardi Trophy.